


Graphite Galaxies

by storydragon



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Star AU, Star!Jean, Star-crossed, artist!marco, pardon the pun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-03-23 10:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3764545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storydragon/pseuds/storydragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For longer than anyone can remember, humans have looked up at the stars, just distant pinpricks of light in the night sky. What they don't realise is that from the depths of space, for all this time, the stars have been looking right back, the unseen guardians of mankind. And unseen is how they are to remain, for everyone's sake... unless, of course, a star should fall, and people should find it.</p><p>And oh, how they would wish they hadn't, when they learn the lengths the heavens will go to to protect their secrets, and what it truly means to have the fates against you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shingekinoyolo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shingekinoyolo/gifts).



> This was inspired by the wonderful book (and film adaptation) Stardust, by Neil Gaiman.
> 
> Dedicated to the lovely shingekinoyolo (whose fics you should definitely go read, by the way) for her birthday!!
> 
> So this is my first real and LASTING go at writing a fic! And a long one, too. I hope you like it!

In the silky, shining plains of space, there is darkness even on the brightest of mornings. It’s a darkness so deep it takes billions of suns, tiny pinpricks of light, to even begin to illuminate its grandeur, painting the swirls of galaxies for all the universe to admire. It’s a vast infinity of dancing sparks, filled with worlds untouched by humanity, pure and dangerous and never once the same, and it is beautiful.

 

And yet, these sparks, these _stars_ , have much deeper purposes than showing off the beauty that surrounds them - they shine with a magic of their own. What is blinding light in the eyes of mankind is a song in the ears of a star, the song of billions uniting across the galaxies to share a common cause - to protect. One hivemind, one _shield_ ; a choir of the cosmos with a dazzling chorus.

For centuries, humans have gazed up at darkened skies to seek the guidance of the stars, never knowing how deep in their lives the heavens’ powers lay. Somewhere in the still, black waters of outer space, a star looks down upon a human on Earth: a guardian, of sorts, always watching from a distance, even when nobody looked back; even in the light of the sun.

From their places on high, they do more than watch, these creatures of light: they hold the destinies of their humans in their hands, tugging at their fates, twisting the possibilities the future holds for them in the hope that, with celestial guidance, they will follow the path that ensures the safest future. And if not, and the worst was to happen… well, the light songs spread far enough to cry warnings, too. And surely all of space had heard, at least once, the blinding scream of a supernova. Oh, even the brightest of melodies can cry warnings, and there is only one greater fear in the galaxies than death.

Falling.

And in this very moment, one single, falling star tears the dark skies of day in two. It leaves its trail through nothingness like a water droplet on a steam-smothered mirror, unaware of the wishes being cast by the people below it, casting their prayers on a streak of distant light. It carries hopes and dreams as it plummets, ripped from its place in the sky.

And it shines a little brighter as the song is broken, broken for the first time in centuries. The constellations scream for their lost sibling, and for the only soul on Earth with no guardian, the first so-called Fateless of their age.

The lost star rushes towards Earth, burning as it comes closer to the world it had only ever seen from afar. Perhaps it was better that way.

Oh, what a horrid fate, to fall.

* * *

 

Blinding light chases you awake, and when you open your eyes, you realise that you don’t have a clue why.

More to the point, you don’t have a clue who you are - or where, for that matter. And you _feel_ … well, it’s the feeling itself that’s foreign to you, overwhelming and suffocating but also, somehow, reassuring. You stare blankly down at the sheets of your double bed - is it yours? - soft and warm against your skin, and wonder just why this sensation is so new to you.

It occurs to you that you’ve never felt anything before.

Your limbs, like dead weights, take some effort to bring back to life, and when you finally get moving, it’s like nothing you’ve ever done before: you bring yourself shakily to your feet, wobbling a little on fragile legs. The warm, clinging feeling of the bedclothes moves with you, and you look down to find yourself wearing clothes that you _know_ aren’t yours; a pair of loose jeans, and an oversized hoodie that smells - oh, now that’s a strange sensation - of a strange, yet pleasant, array of scents that you’ve somehow never had the chance to experience.

You cast a quick glance around the room - it’s packed full of too many odds and ends to count, boxes and objects of all kinds littered around the floor and any free inch of flat surface. The walls are bright with colour, paintings stuck around the room in various states of disarray: some hang on nails, protected by decorative-looking frames, and others hang suspended from scraps of tape, loose sheets of paper decorated in the most beautiful ways. Many of the paintings, you notice, feature the night sky - fascinated, you reach out to touch a particularly beautiful work laying on a desk near your bed-

“ _Aaah!_ Don’t touch that!”

You stop, millimetres away from the paper, turning instead to the source of the voice: a young man stands in the doorway with a panicked look on his freckled face, dark hair mussed up at all sorts of angles you never would’ve thought possible. When you retract your hand to what he deems to be a suitable distance, he visibly relaxes, and he beams at you - it’s the only word for his smile, with the way it lights up his face, shining in his eyes. You look back at him, bemused, but there’s something about him… something familiar, something that clicks in your mind.

You’ve seen this boy before, you know you have - and even if it’s the only thing you _do_ know, then at least you’ve got a start.

“Oh, yeah - uh, I don’t know how much you remember about where you were, or how you got here, but I just took you here to get you somewhere safe and I _promise_ I’m not a creep,” the boy says, hurriedly, and his smile becomes more apologetic than anything. “I’m Marco, by the way. It’s good to see you’re okay.”

You frown at Marco in confusion, who’s obviously unnerved by your lack of response, and your gaze wanders again, drifting from the legless bed - is it just a mattress on the floor? - to the window set into the sloping roof, and the view of the snow-covered town behind it. This whole place is familiar, in fact - but where have you seen it before?

“Uh… hey?”

Oh, of course. Marco.

“Sorry, I just… got lost in thought, I guess,” you say, and he nods his understanding. You’re almost shocked at the sound of your voice - it feels new to you, different to what you expected, though it really shouldn’t: you vaguely remember singing, just an imprint left on your mind by whatever life you lived before now. Even the strange, soft vibrations in your throat are foreign, different to what you were used to before, whatever that even was.

Oh, come on, focus. There are more important questions to be asking here.

“How exactly did I get here? What happened to me?” you ask, and you notice the tips of Marco’s ears redden slightly with his cheeks, bringing an embarrassed glow to his face that you find suspicious, if strangely endearing.

“Well, I was walking through the woods, and I found you just kinda… lying there,” Marco says, running a hand through his hair somewhat nervously - it does nothing to help the rather dire state it’s in, you notice. “In the middle of a crater. And you didn’t have any clothes on, which I thought was really worrying, and that’s probably the last thing you want to hear from a complete stranger, but… I couldn’t just leave you there, y’know?”

“So you took me back here?”

“Well, I called a couple of friends to help- no, that sounds worse,” he groans, face reddening even more. “Look, I didn’t know what to do, and I wanted to make sure you were okay before taking you to a hospital, so I got some friends to bring stuff for you to wear and we just… moved you. God, you probably think I’m so weird, I’m sorry…”

You frown, leaning against the back of the desk’s chair, careful not to nudge the presumably still-wet painting. Part of you still wants to, just to see what such beautiful colours feel like, to stain the skin you almost didn’t know you had, but you don’t want to upset the boy who appears to have rescued you. From what, though, you’re not quite sure.

“Don’t be sorry for trying to keep me _safe_. You don’t seem bad, just a bit awkward,” you say. You don’t realise that you’ve been a little blunt; you don’t really see the point in being anything other than honest - perhaps you’ve still got a long way to go with figuring out feelings of more than one sort. Marco seems a little ruffled, but he doesn’t sound annoyed when he next speaks. He doesn’t deny anything, either.

“So do you remember anything at all?” he asks, his voice curious in a concerned sort of way, and you have to search the recesses of your mind for any memory stronger than a lingering familiarity. You come up with nothing - it’s all white noise from before you woke up.

Before that white light…

Something returns to you, a memory made of static and confusion, and riddled with holes: the view behind the light, the inky blue of a permanent night sky. And something else, a sickening rush, a weightlessness made heavy with the gravity of dread.

“Falling.”

 

* * *

 

“Wait, are you serious?”

Marco nods enthusiastically as he rounds the coffee table in the main room of his little apartment, dodging a worn sofa as he heads for the door. You catch some of the little details of the room as you follow on behind him: the various coloured cushions littering the sofa and bare, paint-stained floorboards; the way everything in the room is so open, with no divide between living room and kitchen, making the flat seem larger than it really is.

“It’s the least I can do! Besides, where else are you gonna stay? You didn’t even have _clothes_ , let alone a house,” Marco says, pulling a coat from a peg by the door. You stand, near motionless, waiting as he pulls on a worn pair of trainers, until he looks up at you with a look of confusion that melts as he realises your current state of dress. “Uh, speaking of which, you might want to borrow those shoes,” he adds, jerking a thumb at another pair by the door; thankfully, they seem to be your size, if a little tight. “Are you going to be ok in just a hoodie? It _is_ freezing out there.”

“Where are we going?”

“To buy you some clothes of your own, among other things,” he replies, and waits for you to awkwardly stand up again - you’re getting the hang of it, however slowly, bless you - before he opens the door, directing you through first - you see what he meant about the cold now, feeling the temperature change the second you come out onto the dimly lit stairway. You descend as he locks the door behind the two of you, with your hands jammed in the pockets of your hoodie - you’ve decided already that the ache of cold is much less desirable than the warmth of your bed. You’re beginning to wish you never left it.

“Other things?”

“We need candles. Or some kind of light source. The power went down last night, and it’s still not back on yet - got to be prepared,” Marco explains as he opens the front door, unleashing a _blast_ of cold air that stings your face, and you screw up your eyes in protest at the sudden icy barrage. It’s only when you feel the kiss of tiny, freezing droplets dampening your face that you open your eyes: it’s snowing, you realise. You reach your hand out to catch some of the snowflakes, raising your palm to a clouded grey sky.

You hear Marco laugh behind you, and turn to see him looking at you with a bemused grin on his face. “What?” you ask, indignantly, and you can see him trying to hold back his snickering.

“Have you never seen snow before?” he asks, the laughter in his voice as he speaks, but you can tell he’s not trying to be mean. You suppose you must look quite strange, so enraptured by the snow dancing in the air. There’s something magical about it, though, the way the wind blows the snowflakes through the air, changing its course and making the whole sky _sway_ as the snow shifts with it, spiraling in perfect harmony.

“Of course I have!” you protest, and you’re not lying, either - you’ve seen it before, you know you have. But you’ve never felt it; never really _experienced_ it before now. It’s different to how you imagined: gentler. You jam your hands back into your pockets again, and Marco merely smiles, but doesn’t say anything else.

You turn to get a better look at the house you’ve just left, and only then do you notice the large glass windows on the ground level of the building, the coloured sign above it, and the shop inside. “ _Rose Art Supplies_ ” is written in cursive in white paint on the pale pink sign, and the outlines of clouds are painted on the windows of the small shop. Inside, you can see a medley of colours and more art supplies in more colours than you ever thought you’d see, all stacked on cute wooden shelves. It’s cozy and neat, in all the ways Marco’s apartment isn’t, but just as colourful.

Just as familiar, too, in the same way that Marco is. You feel like you’ve seen him before, this house, this _street_ , with its snow-dusted stone houses, with curtained windows at the top and all manner of little shops at the bottom.

“D’you work here?” you ask Marco, already expecting the nod that follows.

“It’s my day off today, but most of the time, yeah. Pretty much all of my friends have shops on this street. Not all of us live here, though - I just got lucky.” He points a little down the street, towards another one of the shops. “We’re headed to that one. It’s a charity shop, so it’s hardly fancy, but it’s convenient enough. You wouldn’t believe the things you find in them, sometimes.”

You smile and nod along with his gentle conversation, marvelling at how much more at ease he seems now, how naturally socialising seems to come to him, and let Marco lead you down the cobblestone road. You drink in the details of the colourful shopfronts, so bright against the greyness of their surroundings: the floor, the roofs, even the sky. It’s pretty, with its old-fashioned look and the occasional set of tables outside the odd cafe. You see a bright street sign on the stone wall of the shop opposite the art store, reading “ _ROSE HIGH STREET_ ” in bold letters, before Marco calls you over to the building he pointed out.

Perhaps you still don’t know who you are, and perhaps you don’t know where, but of all the places you could have ended up in, perhaps the snowy high street is among the best places to be.

Marco stops suddenly, pausing right in front of the shop you were just about to enter, and you almost crash into him when he turns around to you with his face creased into a frown.

“Hey, I just remembered - I totally forgot to ask for your name,” he says, and you blink at him, your face blank. “You… do remember your name, right?”

Your… name?

It’s your turn to frown this time, searching once again for even a scrap of a memory, but you can’t think of a thing about yourself. You’re still stuck with that awful light, whatever that is, but you can’t see how that could be of any use. Hell, you don’t even know what you _look_ like.

You glance towards the shop window, and catch your reflection staring right back at you - you see yourself for what feels like the first time, tilting your head from side to side slightly to get a better look. With the interior behind the window interfering, you can’t see colours very well, but you can at least tell that your hair is fair, and darker where it’s been shaved into an undercut. You’re about the same height as Marco, but you’re lankier than he is, your skin pale and clear rather than dark and freckled, with a longer face than his, too.

Something about seeing _yourself_ \- really yourself, as a real person, though you’re not sure why that’s so strange to you - stirs up memories somewhere deep in your mind, deeper than you thought you could go. From before the light. You remember seeing this boy- this _reflection_ before, some eternity ago.

“Jean,” you say, slowly, finally, testing the name on your tongue and finding that it tastes familiar. Not distantly, like Marco - like it’s part of you. “I think my name is Jean.”

 


	2. Lifeforms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Marco]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg okay I wasn't expecting this many people to read it and this SOON but thank you!! I hope you like this new chapter. c:

It could be silly, that such a small street means more to you than could fit in all the tiny little shops combined, but by now, you just don’t care.

Rose is hardly the best place on Earth, and maybe its high street is barely bigger than the average road in any city, but every footprint in the freshly fallen snow was made by a friend, held close to you in heart and in memory by sheer proximity. The cobblestones have been worn down in the same places, by the same people, on the same paths each day, their daily lives and routines bleeding through the cracks of the pavements - the people are the lifeblood of your town, one and the same.

Some might say that a place like Rose is one to escape, pulling them down, trapping them in a small-town routine in the middle of woods and wilderness. And maybe, for those who crave change, it _is_ dull, but to you, the whole point of places like Rose isn’t to be an adventure - it’s to be what welcomes you home.

You’ve grown up here, spent some of the best days of your life running - and, admittedly, falling - on these stones, and you’ve loved it. You’ve seen friends who didn’t think it was enough for them leave, waved them off with wishes of hope and success for their futures, and meant it, too. But nobody ever comes _back_ to Rose. There’s never anyone new to share your haven with, nobody to show the sites of the best parts of The Life and Times of Marco Bodt. Not until now.

Not until Jean.

So maybe he’s an amnesiac. Maybe you’re still just a random, awkward stranger he barely knows. And maybe you _did_ find him- well, lets not think about that. But god damn it, you can at least show him around.

The Rose Children’s Trust is a shop with a generic name that, in your opinion, could never live up to its contents. You find treasures in there every time you go, but the best thing you’ve found, unbelievably cheesy as it sounds, has to be the people. It’s gotten to the point where you’ll buy the first thing that draws your attention, for the sake of giving whoever’s working something to do on the quiet days, and by now you can generally tell, just from looking around, who’s home.

A familiar bell sounds as you push open the door, ringing through the dusty forest of fabrics and furs. Racks stuffed full to bursting with clothes split the room into lanes, and shelves and boxes line the walls and edges of the shop, covered with all manner of objects, each from a different home in Rose, undoubtedly all with their own stories to tell. It’s not a place for clean-freaks or claustrophobes, that’s for certain - though less so today, as for once, the room seems relatively tidy.

Can’t be Eren’s shift, then.

You hear a call of your name from the counter at the back of the shop, and give a little wave over the top of the racks.

“Have a look around for whatever you like, okay? I’ll just be on the other side,” you tell Jean, and he gives a little nod, a look of awe on his face as he gazes around at the sheer quantity of _things_. You can’t help but smile, as you turn from him to the depths of the clothes racks and forge your way through, parting second hand garments like the Red Sea as you go, surrounded by the _clak-clak-clak-clak_ of coathangers knocking against one another and the musty perfume of age.

When you resurface on the other side in a cloud of dust, you’re greeted by two familiar faces, two thirds of a _fiercely_ platonic trio keeping the RCT alive and messy. Armin and Mikasa - her manning the counter, and them perched on top of it, twisting a beanie hat in their hands - the quieter two of their group, thankfully for Jean. Though you love Eren dearly, he gained the nickname ‘Jaegerbomb’ for a reason, and you’d rather ease Jean into the community gently, poor guy.

“Hey, Marco,” Armin says, beaming at you as they tug their blonde hair into a ponytail. “Who’s your friend?”

Mikasa frowns, sitting up to try to see over the clothes racks. “Is that the boy from last night? He’s alright?”

You can’t help but notice the dark circles under Mikasa’s eyes - though she doesn’t seem tired, it’s the kind of thing you can’t help picking up on, especially when it could be your fault. Mikasa had been one of the friends you’d alerted last night in a panic, and she’d been perfectly keen to help you out, but even then you’d felt bad for keeping her up. You worry too much.

“His name’s Jean, and he’s fine, I think,” you say, casting a look back to the boy now kneeling by a large box of shoes, swamped in the hoodie you gave him with his hands curled in the cuffs of the sleeves. “‘Cept he’s lost his memory, so he’s staying with me for now.”

“And you’re gonna be okay like that?”

“What else am I gonna do?” you ask, and you’re quite ready to get off the subject already. You catch a sweet, familiar scent on the air - vanilla and something, but you’re not sure what. Or where it’s coming from. “What’s that smell? Is that a candle?”

Armin nods, pulling their beanie back onto their head. “It gets _dark_ in here when there’s power cuts. Perks of living next to a candle shop, I guess - I don’t think Sugar and Spice have ever been this busy, people have been coming out with bags full of them. Ymir’ll give you a discount though, right?”

Mikasa snorts into her scarf at the very suggestion, and you sigh, sinking down onto a stepstool for the shelves next to Armin. “She’s my sister. I’ll have to pay _more_.”

You’re not trying to say she’s a pain in the ass, or anything. But she’s a total pain in the ass.

“Um, hey?”

You jump a little as Jean appears by your side with his arms full of findings, and leans over the counter to hand them to a waiting Mikasa. Little conversation passes as she scans through the garments, save for an offer from Armin for Jean to hang out here if you’re working, which he accepts with a little nod. He still seems doubtful of people, though you’re not sure why - perhaps, you think, he just doesn’t like being around more than one person.

When you’ve paid for him, and the two of you have taken a bag, Jean bids them a rather awkward goodbye and pushes back through the clothes towards the door, but Armin stops you with a tap on the shoulder.

“Mhm?”

“Did you notice how weird he was around Mikasa?” they say, frowning. They’ve started tugging on their shirt sleeves now without the beanie to fidget with. “Like, _Mikasa_. Who’s hardly talked.”

“I know,” you mumble, “and we’re going past Thorn as well…” Thorn tattoo parlour, a building situated directly between the art store and the candle shop, has long since been an ideal site of ambush for the two of your friends that work there. Very loud friends. “I might have to fend Sasha and Connie off with a stick.”

“Eren’s over there getting inked just now, too.” At the look on your face, they quickly backtrack, stuttering over themself, “But that means one of them will be working on him, so you’ll only have to deal with one of them. Probably. Just keep an eye on Jean.”

“I’ll try and ease him in gently,” you say, weakly. You hear Jean give an impatient shout of your name from the door, and the bell sounds again as the door swings open. You fling a quick goodbye out after your friends and dash out through the clothes racks after him, and it’s only when the two of you pass through the doorway from dust to snow that you remember how harsh the cold really is, snapping icy venom into your fingers as the wind blows your hair from your face.

Somewhere, dithering between the shops, you realise that Jean hasn’t had anything to eat or drink yet, and between the apologies and cursing yourself for being such a bad carer (you’re really not, but then you _would_ think that, wouldn’t you?) you pull him into a small coffee shop and direct him towards your usual seat in one of the booths. Assuming Jean won’t remember what he likes, you decide to order your usual for the two of you - he seems occupied enough just _being_ here, drinking in the smell of the coffee and the way the snow lands on the window, melting down to droplets that race their way down to the bottom leaving wet streaks in their wake, falling like comets. He fits in among the snow, somehow. You look at him from the counter, eyes lingering a little longer than they should on cold-flushed cheeks and the snowflakes in his hair, and you’re only torn back to reality by the barista’s voice.

When you return to the booth, both coffees in hand, Jean takes his with a little jump at the sudden heat of the cup. He seems a little apprehensive of it.

“Have you never had coffee before?” you ask, in disbelief. Jean just shrugs.

“I don’t think so.” He tastes a suspicious first sip, and you watch, waiting for his reaction - you can’t help but burst out laughing when he screws up his face like a kid tasting his first alcohol.

“You okay there?” you manage, and he laughs a little with you.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be so _hot_ ,” he says, giving the cup a look of utter betrayal. You can’t even feel bad. “Or bitter. And you drink this stuff all the time?”

You grin. “Always. It grows on you, I promise.”

The two of you stay in the shop for longer than your drinks last, talking about anything you can find, and with Jean’s curiosity, you’re never short of ideas. He questions everything around you, lighting up at the sight of all of the shops, all of the people, all of the details that have long since faded into familiarity for you. It gives you plenty of chances to tell stories, make no mistake - he listens to them all with fascination, but you can tell there’s something on his mind. He has the look of someone trying to find a word on the tip of their tongue, someone chasing a train of thought so far away he can only follow the tracks.

It’s five o’ clock before you remember why you even came this way, when the clock tower chimes the hour and you see that the sky’s already turned down a shade, like time’s turned a dimmer switch on Rose, the first turning of the few left before nightfall. Better get going, before the shops shut.

It’s stopped snowing, at least, but the approaching early night brings a stronger sting to the air, and puts a little more speed in your step as you approach the candle shop. Thankfully, Thorn seems quiet - suspiciously quiet, you might think, if you were of the suspicious sort - and you pass without trouble on your mind. You notice, however, that while you have had a weight lifted from you, Jean’s burdens seem to have only grown heavier - he’s got that look again, and it’s pointing at the twilight sky like an accusation. You can’t think why - fear of the dark, perhaps? - as the night has always been something you’ve loved. The stars have always been too distant, beautiful and glittering above you, the subject of countless paintings that can never quite do them justice, but at least bring the heavens closer to you.

You can get back to them soon, but you’ll need candles first. Surviving your sister is a necessary evil.

You’ve never been quite sure whether you like the smell of Sugar and Spice. Of course, being a candle shop, it’s not like it smells _bad_ \- it’s just the sheer overwhelming numbers of good things, combined into one sugary mess that’s more of an assault than the relaxing scent it should be. Then again, whenever Ymir’s around, nothing’s far short of intense. You’re not really sure how her girlfriend’s survived this long.

“Hey, kid. You finally showed up.”

Ymir gives you a little wave and a much larger grin from the counter, and you groan - your reaction to most things she does, if you’re completely honest, especially when she calls you “kid”. She’s only a year older, for the love of God. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

You make your way past her without making prolonged eye contact. You’d think it would be obvious that you don’t want to talk to her. Then again, you never have been good at saying no to people, have you?

“His name’s Jean,” you say. You’re not looking at either of them. “And we’re not dating - he’s staying with me for a while, and please just let him be. Jean, this is my sister, Ymir.”

“Charmed. And if you’re looking for candles, we have a new kind I’d like to recommend to you,” she says, cheerfully, “It’s called ‘white wedding’-”

“ _Thank you, Ymir_.” Really, whenever she does this, you’ve never been sure whether she’s trying to set you up or get on your nerves. Generally speaking, the former would be a much more welcome option, but right now, it’s probably not what Jean wants to hear. You keep your head down, swiping candles from one shelf at random - you catch sight of the word ‘lemon’ on the label, and reckon you could do much worse - but you sneak a quick, nervous glance at Jean. He’s looking between you and Ymir with an expression of… concern?

No. It wouldn’t be.

You approach the counter with an armful, dumping them down before your sister with your eyes on the wood, and you make a fuss of finding your money, which you know for absolute certain is in your back pocket. The gentle music playing and the sweet smells of every childhood home would make anyone else fall in love with the place, relax them rather than setting them on edge. You can feel your heart beating in time with the beeping of the barcode scanner, and you _know_ that can’t be a good sign, but it’s not like you could do anything to help that.

Except, you could, if you could get Ymir to leave. But you’re not going to ask, because no matter how much you want to, no matter how much _she_ wants you to, you can never say anything back-

Something hard bounces off of your chest with a sound that can’t quite decide whether it’s a _swish_ or a _crunch_ , and your arms try to act on five different reflexes at once that, somehow, let you catch what turns out to be a plastic bag full of your candles. You look up to see her with one of your banknotes between finger and thumb - you must have laid it on the counter when you were daydreaming, good to know some part of you still functions - and it takes an awkward, yet short wait to realise she’s not going to give you the significant amount of change she owes you.

You don’t press her any further. It’s bait, and you know it.

It doesn’t occur to you, when you start for the door and motion for Jean to follow you, that maybe taking the bait is the better option.

* * *

Something’s different, after Sugar and Spice. Where the silence between you and Jean was once comfortable, it’s grown tense, and now _you_ are the one with your head in another time, another world.

Jean notices, too. You feel a hand rest on your arm and jump, and when you look over to him he’s got that worried look on his face again. It’s not even just worry, it’s… _protective_. You’re not sure how, but it is, and it’s like he’s angry for you and angry _together_ with you, but not angry _at_ you.

“You shouldn’t have to put up with that,” he says, and there it is again. It’s not _you shouldn’t put up with that_ , or _you should do something about that._ He’s not waiting for you to do something, to fix things up like you always do. Perhaps he knows you can’t.

The wind still wears at your skin, and the cold still spreads over your skin like frost over windowpanes, but there’s something oddly warming about Jean’s words, and you feel yourself smiling a little despite yourself.

“Y-Yeah, I know, but she’s just…” you try to form words from your hopeless hand gestures, but Jean merely raises his eyebrows at you. “Nah, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. She’s just… being herself.”

“You’re sure?”

“M’Sure. And hey, what about you? You look kinda distracted,” you say, and you’re not just trying to change the subject, either. He’s doing the same thing as before, giving the sky the same strange looks you might give a passerby with a particular resemblance to an old friend - familiar, and yet so alien, all at once.

Jean shrugs, his eyes still on the cloudless night hanging above you both like a mist. “Something just feels… off. Like there’s something important I’m missing.”

He ends the conversation there, and though you can still see the concentration twisting his face into a frown, you don’t push it. You leave him in peace, quietly letting the two of you in when you reach the art store, shutting the door behind a silent Jean and sealing the winter outside for the night, enjoying the stillness of the air without the sting of the wind. The echo of cold trapped within the stone is nothing more than a bridge between you and the blissful lingering warmth of your flat, and you almost collapse through the upstairs door, sucking in a lungful of air tainted with the familiar, ever-present smell of paint.

And when you warm up a little, you realise that the cold coating your stomach has nothing to do with the weather, and everything to do with the fact that you’ve not consumed anything other than your coffee with Jean today. You don’t even stop to light up the room with your candles - you go straight to your room for your phone, and you’re not even ashamed that the pizza place just a few streets along is number five on your speed dial at this point.

You’re halfway through ordering when Jean starts talking to you.

“Marco, can you hear that?”

He calls to you from the main room, and you’d ignore him completely if it weren’t for the slight note of fear ringing through his voice like a resounding bell. You’re sure it’s nothing, but you silently promise him that the second the kid on the other end of the line stops asking his questions, you’ll go through to him. You certainly can’t hear anything, anyway, and you’re not _that_ far away.

Somehow, that makes it a little more unsettling.

“M-Marco?”

There’s that fear again, less of a bell and more of a siren blazing alarms in your head. He still doesn’t come to you, and you can’t hear him moving, but you didn’t hear him _collapse_ so surely he’s fine, surely…

You rush the rest of your order anyway, hanging up as soon as you hear it’s been processed, but dread crawls cold through your gut faster than hunger can and you go to the living room just in time to hear Jean shout your name.

Even approaching the doorway, you notice that the living room is considerably brighter than before. It’s only when you see Jean that you know why. Jean stands in the center of the open room, staring at his hands, sleeves rolled up to the elbows to expose his skin-

His _light_.

Jean’s entire body appears to be made of white light, shining bright enough to make yours the only lit house in Rose - his skin, already pale, glows with a warmth you can feel even from a few metres away, beams of light shining from his fingers, his hair, underneath his clothes. Jean tears his eyes away from the mesmerising smouldering of his own body to share a quick, dumbstruck look of disbelief and a thousand questions that, going by the look on his face, even Jean can’t answer.

A dusty thought from the night you found him wriggles free of its trappings, and taps not-so-politely on your mind until you listen to it, a silly little thought that came into your head when you first saw him lying there in the woods. You go out there on walks often enough, but this time there had been a purpose, a reason.

 

A falling star.

The sight of it in the sky - so close, coming _closer_ \- had you into the forest like Alice after her white rabbit, a chance you simply couldn’t miss. You wandered in what you told yourself was a random pattern, an aimless stroll with no possible difference to the others, but there was a hope in your heart that you would find that comet, that little piece of space. You would finally be close to it, like you’d always wanted, no longer having to stretch your fingers to countless night skies over Rose and pretend you could feel the little fireballs scorching your fingers. You’d have killed to feel it for real.

But you hadn’t found a star. You’d found Jean.

And then you’d had this thought, this crazy, impossible, wonderful little thought, a spark of magic you’d tried to smother later under paintings of comets and worries for Jean. You didn’t let yourself so much as entertain the _possibility_ , because you of all people know how you’d get so carried away only to be dragged right back down from the stars again by reality.

You came to the woods for a fallen star. When you found Jean, you’d told yourself it was coincidence. You told yourself you could never have found what you were looking for.

But now, as you watch the night burn the edges of Jean’s body into rays of starlight, you can’t help but wonder if you did.

 


	3. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!! There was a lot going on, between holidays and a new project, but here it is! Hopefully a new one soon too. Enjoy!

You tell him everything.

You weren’t sure how he’d react, at first. You weren’t sure how you should react, really, because who could ever be prepared for this? In the end, you were both completely awestruck, though you were a little terrified, but if the feeling was mutual, Marco didn’t let on. He seemed to be running on autopilot as he went back into his room, and came out again holding the duvet cover from his bed - you didn’t protest as he draped it over you, pulling it tight around yourself as he dragged the sofa cushions down to the floor. You sit amongst them now, wearing your blanket like a shell. You feel somewhat like a lantern, but this is the warmest you’ve been since you left your bed and the prickling heat you’re positively radiating is doing nothing to hinder that.

There was something about seeing yourself like this, with the edges of your skin lost to the light, that broke the dam in your mind. The memories fell back into place, so easily that it instantly became difficult to imagine not having them again.

You remembered how the sky looked, how it really looked, illuminated by its eternal song, and you remembered singing with the other stars, for that is what you are, as strange as it seems. You remembered seeing the night through a haze of visions, visions of Earth, visions of Rose.

Visions of Marco.

And perhaps his breathing is bordering on hyperventilation, and, yes, maybe he’s looking at you now a little like he might look at an unexploded bomb, but he’s still here, and you don’t think he ever wasn’t. The differences now are that he can hear you, hang on every word with his mouth wide open and his eyes even wider - and that now, he’s been the one to take care of you, and not the other way around.

It’s a strange feeling, being looked after, when you’ve spent your whole life as a guard, a distant presence - now, you change Marco’s life in person, close enough for him to keep you safe from the unfamiliar dangers, just as you would. You think you like this, as strange as it is, but if you had time, you could learn to be human, and learn to be his friend.

First, though, you think you owe him the truth. And the truth starts further away than he can reach, but Marco believes it, and you feel a rush of gratitude - for the thousandth time today - for the light he carries in his soul, brighter than your skin. Even here, where you have little power to protect him, you vow to yourself to never let that light dim.

“So every star,” Marco says, eventually, hugging his knees to his chest as he rocks back and forth ever so slightly in your nest of cushions on the floor. It helps, somehow, being on the floor - you’ve never done this before, but you think it would feel too formal, sitting down to talk on the couch. When you’re both on the ground, sitting together like kids, it feels more open, more equal, and perhaps you do feel a bit small, but you’re only as small as each other. “Every single one is a person?”

“Sort of,” you reply, and you wonder whether you’re qualified to answer questions with only your own incomplete recollections - and they are incomplete, you know you’re missing something, and it’s making you nervous. You decide it’s not a feeling you like at all. “We don’t look like this, though. I think this is just to fit in - I don’t know what we look like otherwise. Just… light, probably.”

“And you all protect people?” You nod, and Marco smiles, turning a wonderstruck smile to the window, where the stars shine through the snowclouds, gazing up at the troubled skies. “That’s amazing,” he manages, his voice faint. It’s a bit of an understatement, but you don’t care - you doubt you’d be able to form many words when faced with this sort of confession, either. You sit in silence as you let his imagination take his mind, but his daydreams are disturbed by a sudden frown. “Wait, so, if you’re here… who’s keeping us safe?”

Your mouth opens, but there are no words to follow - it wasn’t something you’d thought about, too caught up in the strangeness of your situation to consider the consequences. You’re saved by a distant knock on the front door downstairs, and it’s only then that you remember Marco ordered pizza - he starts at the sudden sound, stumbling to his feet to collect money on his way to the door.

The prospect of food shakes your mind from more concerning matters - indeed, your stomach has been feeling uncomfortably hollow, but you’re not sure if it’s worth the unsettling sensation of eating. Your coffee earlier had been strange enough, and that was just liquids.

Marco shows no such restraint - when he returns to you, he’s already got a half-eaten slice of pizza in one hand, practically throwing the box down on the coffee table in front of you as an invitation. The smell of it wins out against the discomfort of eating it, and the two of you get through the entire thing in no time with sauce on your face and only slight regret for eating so fast. You could definitely get used to this.

Neither of you say a word for a while - Marco’s too spaced out in his fantasies to talk, and so you let him dream, contenting yourself with watching the shadows of snowflakes on the wall as they crash against the window behind you. The sky outside darkens ever faster, but the apartment is still bright, lit by the light that shines through your blanket, and everything’s just… nice. So long as you ignore the weight of the unease bearing down on you, the awful feeling that you’re forgetting something so important, you’re fine. You think.

“I kind of don’t want to move,” you say, and Marco sighs.

“Me neither.” He pauses for a moment, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Hey, y’know what I just realised?”

“I’m gonna save you hundreds on candles?”

Marco laughs, and you can’t help but laugh with him. “That too, but seriously - before, I thought you had some other place to go, but now… where does a star go to go home? It’s not like you can just fire back up to the sky. Well. Can you?”

“That would be great, but I don’t think it works like that,” you say, smiling. “I don’t even know why I fell in the first place, let alone what I’m going to do.”

There’s a thought - what are you going to do? Surely Marco cannot keep you here forever - he has his own life to lead. And what of money? You barely know how to be human, let alone survive by yourself. It’s easy enough to look down on people from the sky, where their lives seem so small and their problems microscopic, but it’s a whole new world down on the ground with no way to go, no compass - or star - to guide you.

You can’t even hear the shining song from here, your glow so much fainter than it would be in the sky. You were dazzling once, blinding, and now look at you. You glance down to your hands, blurred by the light - have they always been there, and you just couldn’t see them, when you sang bright with the rest of the sky? They seem familiar, more familiar than they could be after just one day, but you’re sure you would remember something as major as that.

“You okay?” Marco must have noticed your face falling, if the worry in his own expression is anything to go by. You nod, but he still doesn’t look convinced. “Hey, you’re gonna be alright. You can stay with me, and we’ll figure something out, yeah?”

Oh, god, you don’t know what you’d do without him. “Y-yeah. Listen, Marco, thank you. Really,” you add, grinning at him once again, and the action’s enough to make you feel a little better already. “You’re making me look bad - I’m meant to be the guardian, remember?”

“You’ve done plenty,” Marco tells you, “And hey, however this turns out, I’m gonna be left with one hell of a weird roommate story.”

You both laugh, and there is much more to come in the hour that follows before fatigue tugs at your eyelids, and neither of you have enough willpower left to move. You end up with Marco’s head falling on your shoulder in his sleep, and that is how you stay, taking care not to move your arm in case you disturb him. You can feel him there through the blanket, the way he moves as he breathes - you’re surprised he can sleep so close to this much light, but you are definitely not complaining.

Your day’s been busy with discovering, full of firsts you’re still adjusting to, but there’s something just as satisfying about nothing, the peace that comes just from being, and knowing you don’t have to do anything more. It’s the serenity that comes from hearing the wind outside, the gusts buffeting the sheets of snow around, and knowing that it can’t touch you, in this warm, hazy glow inside, where your breathing keeps in time with the rise and fall of Marco’s chest.

Touch is a funny thing, you’ve found. It’s one thing to oversee things, to see people be so casually, naturally intimate with one another, but it’s another thing entirely to experience it, to feel how comforting and awakening it can be, all at once. You look down at Marco, see the look of sheer calmness on his face, and you promise yourself that, even down here, you’ll find a way to keep him safe, and keep his dreams filled with light.

“We’ll be okay,” you murmur, as your own eyes close. You don’t know whether it’s for his benefit, or yours.

* * *

When you sleep, your dreams are woven with bright voices, shrieking their displeasure too loudly to bear, splitting shining cracks in your paper skin. It almost makes you grateful for the pillow that strikes your face, jolting you out of sleep suddenly enough that you almost fall over in your place. You were already sitting at a strange, tilted angle, where Marco’s absence removed your support - you turn blearily to him, now, where he grins at you from behind his kitchen counter, his hair damp from the shower.

“Your damn shining woke me up early,” he says, but there’s no menace in his tone. “And if I’m awake, I’m dragging you down with me. What d’you wanna eat?”

You blink hard, shaking the sleep from your eyes, and risk a quick look down at your hands. Back to normal, it seems, or at least, as normal as you get. “Dunno,” you reply, “What tastes good?”

It’s your first morning on Earth. It’s only taken one to decide you don’t like them - from what you can gather, that’s not at all unusual, even for those who’re used to them - nor do you like the experiences involved. You have mixed feelings on bathrooms. Breakfast seems alright, but you’ve learned to be wary of toasters - Marco still hasn’t stopped laughing.

“I wasn’t expecting it!”

“Your face!”

“You could’ve warned me,” you protest, and he bursts into another giggling fit. “What are you, ten years old?”

Your attention is pulled to the soft thwack of a snowball splatting against the window, splaying slush everywhere like bugs on a windscreen as it slides miserably down the glass, swiftly followed by another. Marco’s face creases into a confused little frown as he calms down a little, going to the window to detect the culprit - it’s likely he suspects kids playing in the street, much the same as you, but the way his grin only grows as he looks out of the glass proves you wrong.

“Speaking of ten years old,” he says, struggling to open the window. You let out a disgruntled little sound as the cold air rushes in - you hadn’t realised just how warm you’d made it in the flat, and you think you would’ve been a lot happier if it had stayed that way.

“Who’s out there?”

“Remember the other friends we managed to avoid?” You shuffle over a little for a better view out of the window, to see the High Street’s perfect layer of snow ruined by a snowball fight taking up a large section of the high street - there’s seven people in total in what looks like a five-on-two battle. You can recognise Armin, Mikasa, and Ymir on the farthest side of the street, but you haven’t seen the other two on their team, nor the two standing below you. “Hey, Connie!”

“Get out here, Freckles,” the dark-skinned boy under the window calls, grinning. He catches sight of you for the first time, and says something in what was probably meant to be a whisper to the girl next to him. She waves at you frantically, setting her ponytail swishing from side to side - you notice that she’s pulled her scarf over her face like a bandit. “And other. We’re getting slaughtered out here. We didn’t expect when we hit Jaeger that he actually had this many friends.” The boy standing next to Mikasa breaks the ceasefire, if only for a moment, to smack Connie in the head with another large handful of slush, and he yelps in protest. “See, and this is why! Sasha, avenge me!”

From what you can tell, snowball fights largely seem to consist of throwing increasingly-liquidising cold stuff around, and getting hit by large quantities of it, which doesn’t seem like your dream activity. All things considered, though, it does look fun.

“C’mon, Marco and Marco’s friend,” the girl, Sasha, shouts up to you, “We need backup out here! They’ve got Mikasa!”

You look to Marco, uncertain. “You up for it?”

“Shop only opens at ten, we’ve got time,” he says, and you nod, which he takes as a sign to yell down to his friends, “Give us two minutes!”

You tug on the trainers, jacket and one of the jumpers you bought yesterday as Marco roots around for his own warm clothes, and you’re both out the door in a shot - Sasha and Connie let out a loud cheer when you join them, snowballs already in hand.

“Hey, stranger, welcome to the team,” Connie says, brightly, “Consider this your initiation into the High Street family. Go for anything that moves.”

“Enough with the ceasefire!” Armin calls from the other side, their tone impatient, “FIGHT, ON!”

With a courageous and vaguely demented sounding war cry from either side, the air immediately becomes thick with snow, and you get hit within the first five seconds - it’s no more pleasant that you’d thought, especially dripping down your neck, but you’ve gotten yourself into this now, so you’ll settle with getting your revenge.

Mikasa proves to be the most terrifying opponent, with the most spectacular aim you’ve ever seen: you see her get a snowball in Sasha’s mouth, at one point, when it’s foolishly open wide for another war cry. Ymir and the boy Connie called Jaeger both fight like demons, not seeming to care for accuracy - Armin and the blonde girl you assume is the girlfriend Ymir mentioned earlier have a hell of a lot of cover from their assorted partners, and neither are complaining at all. It leaves you and Marco with Sasha and Connie’s bizarre battle tactics, one of which includes a piggyback (“Two tiers of destruction!”) which is, not surprisingly, floored within seconds. Somewhere down the line, Sasha uses a stylish looking girl passing by as a human shield, but you assume - and really hope - she knows her, as the girl is immediately pulled into the fray, evening out the numbers.

It’s mad, and it’s freezing, but it’s the best fun you’ve ever had.

You hear the single chime of the clock that signals half past nine around the same time you run out of proper snow, save for that which has now started falling again, and decide to call a truce, for the sake of getting ready for work. There is much insistence from Sasha that there was no real winner, and that participation is what really counts, but you suspect that has something to do with the fact that, had there been a winner, it absolutely would not have been you.

You all head inside to change out of your wet things, and Marco makes coffee to hopefully stop you both from shivering - you still question his taste, but if it’s putting some of the feeling back into your fingers, you’re not complaining - before you head down to the art store, which seems to have been unlocked already by the time you return: it turns out to have been the girl Sasha dragged into the snowball fight.

“Well, we lost horribly,” she says, as you enter the store. It smells… well, like Marco, of paint and the faint scent of lemons, which is soon explained when you see a large yellow candle in a glass by the till, where Hitch is sitting, the same one as Marco buys. It’s bright in here, with everything - even the wood - in light shades, save for the splashes of colour on paint tubes and labels. You can see why Marco’s so attached to the place. “Hey, you’re the new guy,” Hitch says, looking up from where she’s painting her nails a vivid red at her desk. “Armin told me about you. Jean, right?”

“Uh, yeah, but- new guy?”

“S’what you are, sweetheart. You working here now or what?”

“I thought he could maybe hang around and help out here until we work something out,” Marco answers for you, casting you a quick, nervous glance that plainly asks, ‘is that okay?’, and you give him a little nod in reply.

Hitch only shrugs. “S’fine by me. You can do my job if you really want to - you’ll have to wait for Petra to get back if you wanna stay on full time or anything, though.”

That’s something, at least. You breathe a little sigh of relief - that’s a worry off your mind for now, plus you still get to stay around Marco. You’d just find it bizarre being around anybody else all of the time, after, well, a lifetime with him. It still bends your mind a little - you try not to think too hard into the details.

“Oh, yeah, one last thing, Marco-” Hitch continues, taking a moment to blow on her nails, “My friend Annie, from drama college? She’s doing some sort of project with a couple of her friends, says she’s short on people - you were pretty good at drama in high school, right?”

Marco blushes a little. “I only did it because I had to pick something…”

“Still - she wanted me to ask around, see who’d be interested.” Hitch casts a despairing look out towards Thorn - you can see Sasha and Connie through the window, and you have no idea what exactly they’re doing, but you’re pretty sure it isn’t even remotely safe. “Krista’s going, so so’s Ymir, obviously, and those two idiots over there already agreed. They said they’re going to “help.””

“And by ‘help’ they mean ‘do fuck-all in the general vicinity of the productivity’?”

“There was a lot of road-trip talk, too. They’re probably gonna be off getting eaten by rabid squirrels in the woods they’re filming in.” Hitch shudders. “We’re gonna be camping there. For three days, at least. It’ll be painful. But you could bring your boyfriend, we could make it a party, you never know. God, you always get to the cute ones before I do-”

“Hitch! We’re not-”

“I wouldn’t mind going,” you offer, and you can’t help but smile at how red Marco’s gone. It’s kind of adorable. “I always like to see more of the world.”

“That settles it, then, you’re coming,” Hitch says, brightly. “Marco, don’t protest, I’m not asking anyone else. You’re good.”

The three of you go through the fine details a little more, planning the trip, and talking about the project Marco’s going to be helping with - from the sounds of it, you and all the other people who won’t be acting are going to be left to do as you please, and with Connie and Sasha, that’s surely going to be fun, even without Marco there. You suppose if this is where you’re staying, you can’t still cling to just one person anymore.

Everything’s changing for you, but this is different. You can get used to life here, but being without Marco is somehow the most foreign of all: he’s part of you, and he always has been, and you just hope that even if you can’t be any good to him as his guardian, you can still hold some value to him as his friend.

 


End file.
